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Some days he feels like paper. He thinks that the slightest pressure might crumble him. That the slightest spark might set him on fire.
Some days he thinks he might explode, just shatter into a thousand pieces.
Some days he wonders if the world might be better off if he did. (That Simon might be better off if he did.)
It happens on a perfectly normal day. (Or as normal as their days get.) More importantly, it's a happy day.
That day Baz doesn't feel ill just at the thought of getting out of bed, that day Simon doesn't absentmindedly reach for his wand, Penelope tries to make cherry scones like the ones at Watford, but the only thing she achieves is getting flour in her hair and all over their kitchen. Baz and Simon laugh until it hurts. (They only stop because Penny threatens to curse them.)
They play monopoly after dinner. (Penny's winning.) Simon puts his feet in Baz's lap and Baz tickles him. Simon laughs and flails around trying to get away and ends up sprawling face first on the board. Baz laughs at him. Simon wraps his fingers around Baz's wrist and tugs until Baz lies down next to him.
"Fucking tossers." Penny says fondly with a long sigh. Simon's tail shoots out and wraps around her ankle tugging until she flops down perpendicular to them, lying so that her feet are on their stomachs. Baz debates whether tickling her will be worth the curse sure to come his way. Probably not, he thinks. Instead, he picks up her foot and brings it close to his mouth, pretending to bite.
Penny giggles while Simon looks on fondly. Baz lets go of her foot and she lets it land on his stomach, harder than strictly necessary. It should've been uncomfortable, lying on the ground with the monopoly board and the plastic money digging into their backs, and Penny's feet on their bellies but somehow it is anything but. They fall asleep like that, intertwined as always. And Baz is happy, happy, happy. Until he isn't.
When they wake up, Penny deems it too late for Baz to go home and disappears into her room saying, "Please, don't forget that I'm here, just across the hallway." Baz throws a pillow at her for that. He and Simon are left staring at each other awkwardly, at least until Baz clears his throat and says, "I could just crash on the couch."
This seems to jolt Simon out of whatever reverie he was in-Idiot, Baz thinks fondly-and he says, "Of course not, we shared a room for 8 years. I think we can manage one more night without murdering each other." Baz smiles at that and Simon smiles back, but then, Penny has to ruin the moment by shouting from her room,"I'm not worried about that. I'd almost prefer it to whatever you two are going to do in the room, now."
Baz thanks whatever deity is listening that he hasn't drunk enough blood to blush. Simon, however, reddens enough for both of them. "Bunce, I know you're in love with me or something but honestly, eavesdropping on my conversations is a new low for you." Baz replies after some consideration. Penny answers by poking her head out of her doorway and throwing a pillow at him.
Baz glances at Simon. He's still red and an urge to make him blush again and again and to press his lips to his skin to see if he's as warm as he looks, surges in Baz. He stamps down on it, with some difficulty. (Now that he knows that Simon is indeed as warm as he looks, it isn't any easier to resist.) Instead, Baz squeezes his hand and says, "I'll just-erm..brush my teeth and.." Simon shoots him a quick smile and Baz's heart leaps into his throat, because this-Simon smiling at him, Simon calling him Baz, not with hate or wariness but something akin to love-is still so wonderfully new to him.
Simon pulls him into a lingering kiss and all of Baz's nerves explode with sensation. "I'll be in bed." Simon murmurs against his lips, Baz is too dazed to do anything but give Simon a lovesick grin which Simon returns wholeheartedly.
In the small dingy space they call their loo, Baz curses himself because Simon is just across the hallway and Baz already feels colder without him. He picks up his toothbrush and feels his lips contract to allow his fangs to fill his mouth. They feel abnormal, Baz doesn't remember not having fangs but they still feel abnormal to him. He lets his gaze fall on the mirror and looks at how grey he is. With his fangs filling his mouth, he looks anything but human. He reaches up a hand to touch them and cuts it on them, blood pooling on the tip of his index finger, like he's still fifteen years old.
And suddenly he is all too aware of the fact that he hasn't had sufficient blood and that he's still hungry, not uncomfortably so, but a low constant thrum of hunger. He's highly aware of the fact that there are two giant sacks of blood, across the hallway. Penny and Simon, he reminds himself. He's not hungry enough to go mad and hurt them, but he's all too aware of the fact that there might come a time when he is hungry enough to do that. Some part of his consciousness screams that no, I won't do that, not Simon, not Penny, but he doesn't trust himself.
He's all too aware of the fact that he isn't alive and this is some kind of borrowed life, some kind of life that his mother would rather die than have. And then he's scrambling, scratching and tearing at his skin for some kind of proof that he is alive. More blood leaks out of his injured finger, giving him profound relief, my blood is still flowing, my heart is still beating, he thinks wildly.
But as the blood flow stops, the relief flows out of him and is replaced by a pounding dread, a kind of dread that drowns him in it's tangles. More blood, more blood, he thinks desperately. His eyes dart around the bathroom, looking for something, anything. Then, he spots a razor and before his mind validates the thought, he is swiping it horizontally from the elbow to the wrist of his right hand. The pain makes him gasp but the sight of blood makes him sag in relief. Then, with trembling fingers, he swaps the razor from his left hand to his right hand. He leans against the door and closes his eyes, bracing himself for the pain.
That's when he smells it. The scent of Cinnamon buns and and apples. Simon, he thinks. He looks at his bleeding hand with horror. All he can think is that Simon will see his hand and think that it's about him. He'll think that he's not enough for Baz and beat himself up over it and that he would never understand that he is everything Baz has ever wanted and that it's Baz who isn't enough and Merlin, what have I done? Baz thinks. He scrambles for his wand, just as Simon knocks and asks, "Baz, you alright in there?"
And because he's got a lifetime of practice at lying to Simon, he's able to answer coolly,"Yeah, just give me another a moment." He waits until he hears Simon's steps fade away and the bedroom door shuts behind him, before sobbing out healing spells. It heals without a scar. He clean as a whistle's the floor and the sink. He's horrified to see how much blood he's lost.
He steps out of the loo. He gets dizzy and braces a hand on Penny's door to balance himself. It opens slowly and Penny peers at him knowingly through her glasses. He's sure that Penny doesn't know what exactly he's done. But that she knows something is up all the same.
He avoids looking at her and instead stumbles into Simon's bedroom. Simon's lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling and he lights up like a fucking star when he sees Baz and all Baz can think is that telling him what he'd just done would steal the glow out of him and so he just dips his head so that his hair covers his face-because if Simon sees his face he'll immediately know something is wrong-and walks to the bed and lies down burying his face in the curve where Simon's shoulder meets his neck like he usually does, as though nothing is wrong.
Everything is wrong, Baz thinks. But then, Simon wraps his arms around Baz and his wings engulf them and he thinks, No. This. This is right.